“Double Solitaire” is First in Bestselling Author Craig Nova’s New Thriller Series

In this episode 250, we visit with Craig Nova, award-winning author of “Double Solitaire,” the first in a new series of LA-based thrillers featuring modern-day fixer Quinn Farrell.

As a fixer, Quinn is hired by Hollywood moguls, celebrities, and other LA professionals to clean up their messes, a job that requires moral ambiguity. After falling in love with his lovely new neighbor and her terminally ill patients, his morals are tested, and his ethical house of cards comes crashing down.

Ann Beattie, author of “A Wonderful Strike of Luck” and “The Accomplished Guest,” had this to say about the book, “Reading a new Craig Nova novel is thrilling. He’s one of our very best writers, creating characters who walk a knife blade sharpened with bleak humor as they simultaneously act out their dangerously excessive plans. The figurative language in Double Solitaire sometimes immerses us more deeply, sometimes lifts us out of a creepy, convincing nightmare; it’s up to us where we land. When Craig’s not looking at America head-on, it’s in his peripheral vision. He’s amazing.”

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About the Author:

Craig Nova is the award-winning author of 14 novels and one autobiography, Brook Trout and The Writing Life.  All the Dead Yale Men, a sequel to The Good Son, was published in June 2013. Nova’s writing has appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, The New York Times Magazine, and Men’s Journal, among others. He has received an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Additional Endorsements

“A Hollywood producer hires L.A. fixer Quinn Farrell, the winning protagonist of this excellent series launch…A highly talented stylist, Nova complements Farrell’s moral and existential angst with some trenchant observations on L.A. … Noir fans will hope to see a lot more of Farrell.”

Publishers Weekly, starred review

“When it comes to creating a believable, suspenseful situation, enlivened by quirky but realistic characters, few writers I know can hold a candle to Craig Nova.  Long admired, by readers and writers alike, for his superb prose, Nova often doesn’t get enough credit for his deft plotting, haunting atmospherics, and unforgettable people.  In Double Solitaire, he returns to Los Angeles, his native territory, and offers a story drawn from that city’s secret alcoves, a tale that perfectly blends dark intrigue and the starlight of love, the ugliness of violence and the beauty of the humane gesture.  I stayed up late to finish this novel, and when I finally set it aside, it echoed in my memory for days, all its complexities and subtleties sparkling like the facets of a gem.  One measure of a fine novel is an apparent simplicity beneath which all the heartbreak and decency of human interaction roils and twirls.  Nova entertains, provokes, enlightens, and educates.  His Double Solitaire is the work of a master at the top of his game.”

Roland Merullo, Author of Breakfast with BuddhaFrom These Broken Streets, and    twenty other novels.

“Craig Nova has really done it this time. He hooked me in the first paragraph and reeled me in on page nine. Writing with great style and economy, a master of dialogue and suspense, Nova plumbs the depths of the human psyche. Menace and heartbreak walk hand in hand through these swift pages. I’ll take another trip with Quinn Farrell anytime.”

Lee Smith, bestselling author of Blue Marlin

“Nova is a proven master of character and plot, and Double Solitaire—set in L.A. and equal in suspense and intrigue to Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain—doesn’t disappoint.”

Jonathan Harr

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